Wasps attack hearing aid

A high-pitched hum generated by feedback in an English pensioner's hearing aid attracted a swarm of wasps while he was gardening, forcing him to flee to safety, press reports said yesterday.

Ron Packer, 82, was pruning in his garden in Stroud, Gloucestershire, when he disturbed the wasps' nest and was stung on his hands.

He moved away to examine the stings when a swarm of wasps came at him and clustered around his 30-year-old hearing aid, stinging him eight times.

"They stung me at the front and back of my hearing aid area and really homed in on it. I was badly stung and was left with a boxer's cauliflower ear. I couldn't wear the hearing aid for a few days or sleep on that side," he told the local newspaper.

Packer said it was lucky he was "pretty agile" and could get away in time.

"If Mr Packer's hearing aid had worked its way loose during his gardening then it could have been prone to feedback. That would have made a very high-pitched whistling or buzzing sound that the wasps could have picked up on," he said.

Beekeeper Don Streatfield said: "Wasps and bees are attracted to electrical goods, particularly ones that vibrate. And they attack in swarms, because when they sting they emit a pheromone, or chemical, telling the other wasps to help them."